


Moonlight

by theirblinggirl



Category: K-pop, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, VIXX
Genre: M/M, faerie!Hongbin, praetor lupus!Wonshik, there is plot hidden in this somewhere but you really have to look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6837532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theirblinggirl/pseuds/theirblinggirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of disgraced Faerie Knights and lone werewolves, AKA a crossover story in which kpop idols (VIXX) are in the TMI/Shadowhunter universe, so naturally Wonshik is a werewolf, Hongbin is a faerie, so there is angst and betrayal and yet, they just can't seem to break it off.<br/>Set after CoHF, so contains slight spoilers/references.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> For TMI fans: a random short faerie/werewolf story with a lot of cold peace/praetor lupus feels. Makes sense without knowing who VIXX are.  
> For VIXX fans: this will probably make no sense at all if you haven't read the Mortal Instruments book series, but A) you definitely should because they are way too awesome not to read and B) if you still decide to read and have quiestions, ask away~

Hongbin paused briefly in front of the old, worn-down wooden door, his hand raised to knock but hovering inches before the splinting surface. He knew that knocking before entering somebody’s place was a mortal custom that Wonshik was quite obsessed with – but if he did knock, that would give the lycanthrope boy the opportunity to send him away, or to pretend that he was not at home, and Hongbin couldn’t have that. In the end, he settled for a sharp, single knock, before reaching for the doorknob – and managed to yank his hand back in the last second, before it touched the unforgiving cold iron surface. That explained why he kept getting chills in the otherwise warm, damp and frankly, disgustingly smelly corridor. He was starting to wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that he was about to enter Wonshik’s apartment, even though his pride sneered at the mere thought – Hongbin was not some half-wit pixie to shy back from a possible confrontation with some werewolf.

He had run into him that evening, when it turned out that the young mundane man that Hongbin hoped might have some information to help him with his search was, in fact, under surveillance by Wonshik for completely different reasons. It was the first time that Hongbin saw him since he returned to Seoul a few days back, and truthfully, he had not made up his mind whether or not to visit Wonshik at all, not until he saw him tonight and felt the familiar pull to reach out and touch him for one last time.  
Wonshik’s words from earlier, casually calling Hongbin _“some Faerie Knight”_ , still rang in his ears, and while the boy did a remarkable job in ignoring Hongbin all evening, not acknowledging not only the fact that they knew each other but his entire existence, Hongbin refused to let that comment get to him. He has long decided to refuse anybody to get to him, ever again.  
He could not muse on that thought any longer, though, because the door opened the next moment, and Wonshik stood in front of him, in sleeping clothes but without any sleep in his eyes. In fact, he looked like somebody that has not gotten any sleep in a far longer time than it was healthy, but Hongbin forced himself to pretend he did not care.

“You changed the doorknob,” he said, in lieu of a greeting. His voice was quiet, but it still echoed down the empty hallway, making him feel as if he was shouting.  
“Keeps your kind out. Or it was supposed to,” Wonshik snorted, opening the door wider but placing himself on the threshold so that Hongbin would not be able to step inside. “In case you didn’t take the hint – you are not welcome here. Get lost.”  
“I came to talk to you,” Hongbin simply answered, and raised his eyes up to Wonshik’s. The werewolf boy only held his gaze for a moment, before looking away, but in that moment Hongbin saw so much hurt and hatred and doubt that he had to reach out, and before he could stop himself, he was cupping Wonshik’s face gently in one hand. “I am sorry, Wonshik, truly. Please let me in.”  
“Right you are,” the boy snarled, flinching away from his touch, but Hongbin could see how his whole body tensed, how he had to will himself to move away, and not closer.  
“You know I could not say it if it were not true,” Hongbin whispered, but he didn’t reach for Wonshik again. He did not want to see him shake his hand off again, like his touch was poison. In a way, he thought, that is all it really was.  
“But I don’t. I don’t know anything about you, nor do I want to. I thought… that you were different, that you were not… I believed in you, Hongbin, I thought I knew you better. When I heard what the faeries have done, I thought of you and I refused to believe it, but you were gone and they said…”  
He didn’t have to finish for Hongbin to know what was that broke Wonshik’s heart and his trust in him.  
“You learned that some Fey warriors took part in the attack on the Praetor Lupus,” Hongbin said for him, and he thought that if he still had his heart, it would have dropped and shattered on the dirty floor at Wonshik’s feet. But as it was, he had already given his heart away only to have it broken, its shards scattered throughout the misty lands under the hill, so that Hongbin had no hopes of finding them and putting it together again.  
Wonshik let out a small sigh, almost a whimper and his head and shoulders dropped, the tension and strength both running out of his body. He no longer hovered in the doorframe, no longer blocking Hongbin’s way, barely looking capable of standing up. All fight had gone out of him, all fire and life, and Hongbin felt a sharp pain shot through his chest at seeing him lost like that. One of the many reasons he felt drawn to Wonshik used to be his unbreakable will to live, this wild, crackling fire that ran through his veins and lit his eyes up an unholy bright blue, the color of lightning, the curse of the moon.  
But though the curse remained, Hongbin could not see anything else left of the boy that he had hoped still remained one for Hongbin to care about.  
  
He took this chance to gently push him inside, stepping into the dark apartment after him, and closing the door with his heel, careful to avoid the doorknob. Once it closed behind them with a soft thud, Hongbin stood silently, giving Wonshik time to collect himself, to look up into his face once again. Only then did he shake his head, knowing what the other would ask before he could open his mouth. Hongbin always knew, somewhere deep inside where once his heart used to be, what Wonshik would say.  
“Were you there, Hongbin? Yes or no, were you… did you see it happen?” Wonshik’s voice was raspy, his hands balled into fists and ready to strike. He finally accepted Hongbin’s gaze into his eyes, as if daring him to refuse the question.  
“No.” Hongbin's voice turned soft as feathers, but somehow it sounded guilty even to his own ears. He did no wrong, he told himself. “I had no knowledge of the attack on your friends before it happened.” Even if he did, he could not have done anything to prevent it.  
“But… would you have told me? If you knew, would you… would you have come to me? Would you have betrayed your people to give me a chance to save mine?”  
Indeed – whispered the menacing voice of guilt in the depths of Hongbin’s mind, guilt that the faerie boy did not believe he was capable of feeling until the saw Wonshik earlier that day. Would you have thought of them, would you have cared for some werewolves you never knew?  
“I have, Wonshik. I already have. I no longer have a people,” Hongbin said instead, voice still quiet but now cold, and it clearly shocked Wonshik for he let his fist drop and took a small step towards Hongbin, before stopping himself abruptly.  
“I do not know, what I would have done, had I the chance to warn you or your friends, but I had no such knowledge. The boy’s plans were only known to… to the Queen, and even she, I’m afraid, was not aware of them all.” He shook his head then, and something flashed across his face, some kind of dark, almost unbearable pain and anger that almost mirrored Wonshik’s own feelings.  
But then again, this was Hongbin, a faerie, and you could never be sure faeries even had feelings, much less feelings comparable to mortal emotions, Wonshik told himself, ignoring the pang of guilt at his own mistrust. It could have been that something bothered and hurt and haunted Hongbin somewhere deep and hidden, eating away at his soul and gripping his thoughts in ever-tightening iron fists, much like how Wonshik has been feeling lately. Or it could have just been something bad he ate.  
Anger dwelled up once more inside Wonshik, and his eyes lit up in the darkness like small headlights as he jumped at Hongbin, his nails growing into claws, and he gripped the faerie boy’s throat, throwing him against the wall, barely noticing where they broke the smooth, minty skin, drawing thin lines of blood that trickled down the sides of his neck, green as the color of pine trees in the snowy mountainside.

“They weren’t just my friends… they were my family, my past and my future, they were the ones that gave meaning to my life, gave me a purpose and will to live… they were everything I had. And you, yours, helped Sebastian to take them away from me, and I couldn’t even be there to fight for them, to protect them or die trying!” he growled, blinking back angry tears, and he knew that Hongbin realized he blamed himself for it as much as he blamed the faeries.  
“I heard, afterwards, that you remained in the city,” Hongbin continued, not bothering to shake Wonshik’s hand off, but he was no longer indifferent and cold. The tremble in his shoulders and the way he cast his eyes down betrayed him. Wonshik had no idea how he knew, but he did. This was not simply Hongbin telling the truth, or pretending to, twisting his words and concealing some falsehood with obvious facts, misleading and looking for something to gain from the situation– this was Hongbin confessing to something, for the simplicity of having to say what was on his mind. It was unsettling, Wonshik thought, how honest, how vulnerable and… human he seemed for a short while.  
“I knew there was a Greater Demon, and that you went up north to fight alongside the Nephilim. And although I do not believe you owe them anything, I am glad you did, for if you had gone to America, if there had been a distress call and you answered, you would have been slaughtered with the rest of the Praetor. And I could have not done anything to prevent that, either –“  
His words caught in his throat abruptly, and Hongbin tried his best to turn his face away from Wonshik, to hide his expression in the shadows. Wonshik wanted to release him and reach out, to draw him close and whisper soothing little nothings, lies really, into his dainty, pointed ears – to tell him it was alright. But it wasn’t, and Wonshik felt, not for the first time, that nothing was ever going to be alright, not for himself and definitely not for Hongbin.

For the first time since he saw him earlier that night, the wolf within seemed to stop demanding his blood, demanding that Wonshik tore him apart on the spot for who he was, for who he believed him to be. Instead, he was now full of questions, yet he could not bear to ask them for as much as he was angry at Hongbin (without reason, he was beginning to understand), he did not want to embarrass him with making him fall apart in front of Wonshik. Hongbin was nothing if not proud, proud like his kin but also proud in an almost human, self-destructive way and Wonshik suddenly wondered how he knew so much about him. It’s not like they shared a lot of heart-to-heart conversations, it wasn’t even like he trusted him… or maybe he did, but Hongbin certainly did not trust him. He trusted no-one, needed no-one and have said to be able to love no-one. No one but his Queen.  
And there it was, first amidst his thoughts then on his lips, the name, the question he really wanted to ask, the big truth behind the small ones that made it so impossible for Wonshik to believe Hongbin, to believe him of all people.  
For it was common knowledge, and Hongbin made no secret of it, that he loved the Seelie Queen, loved her deeply, gave his entire heart to her and would have given his life if she ever desired so. And now that the core point of his existence, his Queen, fell, how could Wonshik know what has become of Hongbin? He did not blame every faerie for the sins of a few. As much as he tried to, he did not blame an entire race for the destruction of the Praetor Lupus, which meant the destruction of the fundaments of all he knew, and cut him away from his own life, like a child’s balloon, set free and floating aimlessly upwards into the vast skies… But he blamed the Queen, and Hongbin belonged to the Queen.  
I no longer have a people, Hongbin had said, and Wonshik did not dare to try and understand what that meant, for now as he saw him, really saw him for the first time that day, he was beginning to realize that he could not help loving Hongbin as much as he hated him, too. And if those words meant what he thought they could, that was more than Wonshik believed Hongbin could bear. More than what he wanted him to bear.

“The Queen…” he said, voice hoarse, and he had to clear his throat before he could continue. “They say she is gone, cannot be found… She left you behind, didn’t she?”  
Wonshik has never asked Hongbin about her before, out of respect for his privacy, he used to think, but now he was beginning to suspect it was also because he did not want to hear Hongbin talking about her, did not want to know the whole truth of his feelings for her, and he knew that Hongbin wouldn’t even consider lying about her to Wonshik, not even if he could.  
But at this point, at this moment in his life, he could not imagine hurting even more than he already was, so out of some masochistic instinct, as if he was trying to push the limits of his pain – now he asked.  
“Tell me about her,” he prompted. “Tell me what happened with you and the Seelie Queen. Show me I can trust you. Or get out of my house and never show your face to me again.”  
For a moment, Hongbin went so rigid that Wonshik thought he went too far – he withdrew his hand and stared at it, claws retracting back into short, bit-down nails. Then the faerie lifted a finger to the already drying streak of blood on his neck, and as he examined it, the deep green on his fingertip glistening in the dark, he collapsed onto the floor in front of Wonshik. The werewolf crunched down immediately, panic clenching his throat, but Hongbin seemed otherwise fine. It was just that his legs gave out as all the power left him, all the hard-iron will that held him up straight and proud for more than a hundred years.  
Wonshik settled into a cross-legged seat, leaning back on his hands uneasily, as he watched Hongbin take a deep, long breath, and with his eyes fixed somewhere far, began to talk.

“There is much to tell about the Seelie Queen, but precious little about her and me…” he started, and Wonshik could hear how softly and carefully he spoke her name, almost intimately as if he was kissing each syllable instead of merely uttering it. He hated her more than ever.  
“I came into her Court long years ago, to become her Knight. I was in love the first moment I set my eyes upon her – the Queen, as you must know, is more beautiful than anyone who has ever lived, in this world or any others. She is cold and merciless, but that only amplifies her charms… Not long after I first saw Her, I was sent on a mission, a quest that succeeded, and perhaps it was the haze of victory that gave me the courage to kneel down at her divan and offer my heart to her.  
You have to understand, when the Fey do that, we mean it in a more serious way than mortals do. I told her that nobody else would ever have my heart, and my words would have bound me. It is not a figure of speech, when a faerie gives his heart, it is almost as literal as if I had cut it out and placed it at her feet.  
The Seelie Queen laughed, then, and her laugh was as beautiful as an angel, and just as cruel. She told me not that she would not give hers in exchange – I never imagined such honor -, nor that She did not want it, and I was foolish to think She would… No, she told me that she had no use for it, and I was not somebody that she wished to take useless gifts from. That there was nothing precious about a heart that was given so willingly and without restraint.”  
Hongbin’s voice was so quiet that Wonshik almost did not hear it trembling, but when he did, he scooted forward, placing a gentle hand on his knee. His blood was running cold with dread but boiling with wrath at the same time and he was not sure he could bear listening any longer. But he had to – he asked, and he was given the truth. He asked something from a faerie, and forgot that when they gave you what you wanted, it always came with a bitter price.  
But Hongbin shook Wonshik’s hand off, pulling his knees up to his chest, and without glancing at the other boy, continued to speak.

"I expected her to take my heart and keep it, along with the doubtless countless others, for she inspires love as much as she inspires hate, and there have been many to fall for our Queen. I expected her to take it and then throw it away, when she later decided I was not worth her time, I expected her to step on it with her soft pale soles and laugh as she crushed it into the ground.  
But I did not foresee that she would not even look at it, that she would not find me worthy enough of her time to even throw it away.” Hongbin snorted, then, a short and scornful sound, more bitter than the bile in Wonshik’s mouth.  
“How foolish of me, you must think now. And it was. The most foolish thing I have ever done, or ever will. More foolish than anything the Court has seen in centuries. But it was done, and I am not certain that if I knew, I would have done any differently. I was in love only once, you see, but I always knew that love makes fools of mortals and immortals alike. And while she had no use of my heart, I was still her Knight, and it was not only my love I could gift her with, it was also my loyalty, my service – my life, if she had wished it. But then again, I do not think she would have thought enough of my life to wish it.  
And I stayed and I waited and I served, hoping that one day I would have done enough to earn her favor, that I would be enough one day for her to accept my heart.  
Then came Jonathan Morgenstern.”

This was the first time Hongbin looked up at Wonshik, and he was surprised to see that there were no tears in his eyes (Wonshik felt them starting to well in his owns). But all he could see was hatred, blazing self-righteous hatred so intense he leaned back, his lips pulling back from his fangs instinctively, like a spooked dog.  
“I saw that everybody else refused to see, because none had watched the Queen as closely as I have, I saw that Jonathan Morgenstern would be her downfall. So I lay in wait for the perfect moment, a moment when his guard would be down so I could kill him, before it was too late. But that moment never came, and… you know the rest.”

He stopped talking, and his breaths came short, as if he had been running. Wonshik felt too shaken to move, but his stupor only lasted for seconds, and then, before he could realize what he was doing, he sprang at Hongbin again.  
Only this time, there were no claws, and he did not go for his throat. He went for his lips with his own, and grabbed for his shoulders and they tumbled and fell, in a tangle of shaking limbs and short breaths and desperate kisses.  
Wonshik was desperate to kiss him, to make him forget - or maybe to make himself forget, it did not seem to matter. The only thing that mattered was the bliss of thoughtlessness, the simplicity of touches and the familiarity of it all. They never talked much before, certainly never like this – it was always more the wishes and needs of body than of soul, and Wonshik realized only now how much easier that had been. He spent so much time in Hongbin’s arms, yet he never noticed. He knew that he did not really know Hongbin, but he never understood just how much there could be to knowing a person, not his gestures or tricks or the small sounds he made or even his peaceful sleeping face, but all the terrible turmoil of secrets underneath. The secrets that made him who he was. Not the secrets _to_ his soul, but the truths that _made up_ his soul.

Kissing always helped to make one forget, and it certainly worked this time, because a short while later, Wonshik couldn’t even remember how they laid down properly, not with stray limbs flailing around helplessly like at first, but with every part finding its place like puzzle pieces, coming together to form the grand and beautiful picture of Wonshik grabbing at Hongbin’s soft pale clothes and tearing them away, and Hongbin biting Wonshik’s lips with closed eyes and still knowing where exactly he was, where to touch, where to hold onto.  
Thick rays of pale light found their ways through the windows and illuminated them as they rolled across the floor, not minding the dust that flew in their wake, not minding the squeaks of the uneven floorboards that scratched at their naked skin.  
  
Wonshik’s skin was on fire – his body heat was always just a notch higher than humans or faeries, but now it felt as if tiny flames were actually licking at it, until he realized that they were not flames but Hongbin’s fingertips and lips and tongue, and he growled and held Hongbin’s hands down by the wrists, next to his head. The faerie looked up then, and in his eyes Wonshik could see that he was not the proud Knight he used to be once, but he was still a warrior. Because not sadness but challenge gleamed in his eyes, daring Wonshik to speak, to break the spell that they knew was saving them both from tripping and falling into the abyss of their dark pasts, the deep darkness of secrets still untold and horrible truths uncovered.  
Instead Wonshik lowered his head, slowly, until it was inches away from Hongbin’s face, and took a quiet moment to take in the smooth arch of his brows, the sharp edge of his jaw, the almost translucent porcelain of his velvety skin and the depths of green in his quickly darkening eyes. They changed their color, Wonshik knew, and he also knew these hues in particular, as he used to see them often before – the silk sea-green of lust. He could feel instincts kicking in as he took a deep breath through his nose, and although Hongbin’s scent had filled the room the moment he walked in, he could smell it more clearly now.  
He smelled like how Wonshik imagined moonlight would – not as sweet or warm as sunlight, but with a promise of mysterious darkness barely held back by light – and he fought the urge to howl. Hongbin’s stare seemed to prompt him to do just that, as if inviting him to embrace the Beast lurking deep inside, the monstrous part of his nature that was not so different from Hongbin, except maybe that he never seemed to deny it. Maybe the Shadowhunters were right, Wonshik thought. Maybe the Fey were too wild to be trusted.

But this was not the vague 'the Fey', this was Hongbin, and he might not have trusted him but he knew him more now, knew him better than before and there was nothing, Wonshik thought, nothing else he could lose by trusting Hongbin once again. If the faerie took everything from him – and he had scarce little left in his life – he would still have lost less than Hongbin had. He would still have himself.  
Wonshik’s heart throbbed painfully at the thought, just as Hongbin wriggled his wrists experimentally, as if wondering why Wonshik was not moving, not continuing what his eyes – his whole body – no doubt promised he was going to, and the werewolf boy dropped his head the rest of the way, mouth finding Hongbin’s once again. Only this time, he held back the hunger from his kiss, and made it as soft and caring and trusting as he possibly could. He had never kissed a person like that before, trying to convey so much, telling everything that he did not dare to say with words, in just one kiss, a slow, warm and encouraging slide of lips against lips.  
I am here, his lips were saying. And you are here with me, his tongue added, barely touching Hongbin’s lover lip – and you will stay for as long as you need, and you can come back and I will always be here. And I will try to always understand, said the soft whimper that escaped the kiss.  
And I am thankful, said Hongbin’s mouth back, and I want you, was the message of his teeth that caught Wonshik’s lip, almost drawing blood.  
He wriggled his wrists again, but Wonshik grinned and held on stronger, bringing both together in one hand, and sliding the other one down his arm and his torso. He was probably stronger than Hongbin, but the other was not earnestly trying to free himself, not yet. Instead, he fell slack for a moment, then arched his hips, pushing up against Wonshik on top of him, and a low growl escaped Wonshik’s throat, raw and inhuman, as if the last strands of his human restraints were leaving him.

He let go of Hongbin’s wrists then, so that he could touch him and grab at him with both hands, pulling his lean legs up and wrapping them around his own waist. Hongbin snickered into his mouth, and their kiss faintly tasted of blood but he did not know whose blood it was, who bit whom first, only that the soft carefulness from earlier was gone. There were no hidden messages anymore, only the clash of teeth and canines. This was one thing Wonshik always looked forward to about being with Hongbin – that he needed almost no self-restraint, that he could let go of the responsibility and limitations of being a werewolf in a city full of mundanes. There was nobody to watch him, nobody to hold him back and Hongbin urged him to break free. He was not afraid that Wonshik would hurt him, he lay on his back and bared his throat easily and moaned with pleasure when Wonshik nibbled along his pulsing flesh, not tearing into his skin but leaving harsh marks nonetheless. Perhaps Hongbin did not understand what this meant to the wolves, this gesture of complete surrender and trust. Or more likely he did, and he reveled in it, for he was so different, so out of this world that he had no reservations of giving up control over such earthly things as his body.  
In return, Wonshik was willing to let go of his own restraints, to take it all and more.

When Hongbin’s hands finally came free, he reached down just as eagerly as Wonshik did, and scratching at his abdomen, tried to pull at Wonshik’s pants. It was such a shame that they were still on, really. But his own legs, wrapped around Wonshik’s waist, were in the way, so he pushed the boy away a little, reveling in the protesting whimper that he made in response, and shakily emerged to his knees. He pulled Wonshik up, then, and stopped him from jumping back at Hongbin for a second, to run his gaze up and down his body. His eyes were unmistakably blue now and they glowed, and heat coiled inside Hongbin in response. Wonshik knelt just a touch away, disheveled and heaving and sweating, wild and unrestrained, beautiful in the same savage way as the lands under the hill. Wonshik reminded Hongbin of his home. His fingers curled with yearning, but he tried to stay graceful as he undid Wonshik’s pants and slid them down his light brown tights that trembled in anticipation. He moved closer, then, his bare chest colliding with Wonshik’s once again but he hold onto him so they stayed upright on their knees as Hongbin kissed Wonshik, open-mouthed and heavy. He could smell the musky scent of werewolf under cheap cologne, and he run his nails lightly down Wonshik’s side before he reached between their bodies for a touch that he knew would make the boy growl again. It was intoxicating, this growl, and Hongbin wondered why he thought he could keep away from it for so long, knowing very well that while there were never any promises between the two of them, it was only ever Hongbin who could, and would, make Wonshik shake and snarl like that.

“Are you done playing?” Wonshik’s voice came raspy and lustful, and Hongbin chuckled with delight, not stopping with his deliberately slow and teasing strokes.  
“Are you not entertained?” he challenged, and Wonshik’s eyes glinted as he reached to the side, pulled a rag carpet closer and promptly shoved Hongbin down onto it.  
“I’ll show you entertained,” he grunted, climbing on top of Hongbin once again, swatting his hands away and pinning him down with his own body, hands raking up and down his lithe form.  
“No doubt you will,” Hongbin answered, and he meant it to be light and teasing but his words caught in his throat and a small moan escaped his lips when Wonshik dig his fingers into his thighs and rolled his hips down against Hongbin. Sparkles erupted behind Hongbin’s closed eyelids and he did not even realize he closed his eyes until Wonshik demanded that he look up at him.  
Their gazes locked, sea green and electric blue, impatient need practically crackling in the air between them. Hongbin licked his swollen lips, and Wonshik’s eyes followed the dart of his tongue hungrily, so he reached up and pulled Wonshik down by the back of his neck to taste him yet again. The world was beginning to spin faster – or maybe it was just their heads –, and Hongbin held onto Wonshik so they would not be torn apart. He touched and caressed and clawed at every inch of skin he could reach, his arms and shoulders and his long, long lean back, his butt and thighs. And yet he yearned for more, closer… But instead Wonshik pushed himself up higher, and it was no longer teasing when he pulled Hongbin’s legs apart and brought them up to embrace his hips. He was supporting himself on one hand, muscles tensing with the effort and Hongbin turned his head to the side to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, but he waited for Wonshik to make the move, to reach down and between his split legs and his eyes went round and he hissed when finally, finally, he felt Wonshik’s finger inside.

Hongbin unwrapped one trembling leg and Wonshik descended onto his side next to him, leaning over Hongbin and watching his face intently. White-hot sparkles were cursing through Hongbin’s veins and he felt goosebumps rising all over his body, but he kept his gaze steady as he looked up at Wonshik, surprised to find that he was smiling.  
“You’re… waiting? I won’t beg you, Wonshik, you know that…” he whispered, fighting some unknown urge that screamed in his head to do just that.  
“I know… Proud and perfect, Lee Hongbin does not ask or beg, he takes. I just… like to watch you like this. Writhing on your back, coming apart on my floor…” Wonshik’s whisper was low and barely audible, but it was oil to the flames of Hongbin’s blood.  
“I will hardly... come apart from a few fingers.” He bit back a moan, then, because Wonshik simply curled said fingers just so, and chuckled.  
“See, I believe you think that to be true… I’m just not sure it actually is. But today is not the day I prove you wrong, Hongbin,” he shook his head, and this time, Hongbin’s breath stopped at the wishful way he spoke his name. No one ever said those simple syllables like that… Before he could lament on what the tone meant, Wonshik kissed him once more, for good measure, and the untamed fire was back in his touch when he settled between Hongbin’s legs and held his hips in an iron grip as he slid inside him in one sure, not overly careful thrust.  
Wonshik cursed, then, and Hongbin wasn’t sure that he himself didn’t, because finally, finally there was no more teasing and promising and waiting, no more uncontrolled desire that wanted so much all the same time that it hardly ever got anything done. There were no more limits between them so Hongbin could finally let himself go and dissolve in the pain mixed with pleasure mixed with freedom.

One was never as free as when they let go of themselves, when they got lost in another person, and Hongbin let himself be lost in Wonshik, his thoughts melting in the pools of his irises and their bodies fusing. He met Wonshik’s thrusts with his own lifting hips, and soon there was disharmony and fluster and uncoordinated movements once again. Everything was falling apart, and Wonshik bit into Hongbin’s shoulder and his not-quite-yet claws broke the skin on his waist and Hongbin’s nails left angry red marks on Wonshik’s back, his vision was darkening and Wonshik’s shoulder blades trembled, both their bodies trembled – it was a prefect, ultimate, heavenly mass. And then Wonshik came to his senses just enough to run a shaking hand down Hongbin’s chest and stomach and wrapped his fingers around him and mere seconds later the world did broke apart. Hongbin’s mouth fell open and Wonshik took advantage of it and tried to kiss him, only to mutter more curses, because Hongbin’s body was still twitching and his spasms brought Wonshik with him soon after. He went rigid, and then collapsed on Hongbin and buried his face in his enchanted-brown, now dusty and messy hair that still smelled like herbs growing by a creek, and took shallow, quick breaths while he came down from his high.  
Hongbin’s hands found their way to Wonshik’s black locks too, and he started running his fingers through them absent-mindedly while he tried to commit to memory each little twitch of their bodies where they were pressed together. He asked himself if he wanted to stay like this longer, and was not surprised to realize that the vague sounds Wonshik was making against his scalp were actually words, and that he was asking much the same question.

“That was embarrassingly quick,” Wonshik murmured later, after he rolled off Hongbin and collapsed at his side, resting his head on Hongbin’s chest. There was no reply, but he could feel a silent laugh shaking though the chest under his cheek. Hongbin continued to play with his hair, and the soft touches against the nape of his neck made him drowsy.  
“We could go to the bed,” he continued, and this time, Hongbin made a contemplating hum.  
“We could. But then, we would have to get up first…” he said, and Wonshik muffled a groan against his skin, then pressed a kiss on it, because he could.  
“Point taken. I have an excellent floor. Who needs a bed…” he agreed, and lifted a hand to run his fingers across the various bruises and marks he had made on Hongbin’s skin. They were already fading, which annoyed him slightly, but he supposed it was a good thing that Hongbin healed almost as fast as Wonshik himself. He rarely had to fear that he would accidentally hurt him when he got carried away.  
“So… You got what you came for, then? You said you wanted to talk, but I’m guessing it’s not conversations you want me for, is it…” he said, and cursed himself immediately afterwards. Trust Kim Wonshik to ruin a perfectly comfy post-coital cuddle.

And indeed, Hongbin’s hand in his hair froze – but he did not sit up, did not push him away. So Wonshik rose up instead to look into his face curiously. He was expecting to see Hongbin’s expression shut-off and guarded, or scornful even, but he never thought he would see hurt confusion in his eyes.  
“I was under the impression that this… want, was not one-sided,” Hongbin answered, and he sounded careless enough but he lay unmoving and Wonshik had the sudden urge to bang his head against the closest wall.  
“That’s not what I meant!”  
But then again, was it really not…? He wondered, until Hongbin’s quickly cooling eyes made his uncertainty evaporate.  
“Come on, Hongbin, don’t give me that shit. I don’t know how you faeries work, but I can say for us mortal guys that it’s not something you can just fake, okay… But let’s be honest here, you didn’t come back to Seoul just to see me. I can imagine it was a nice extra, but you came for that mundie guy, and he didn’t turn out how you wanted him to, so you decided to pay me a visit. Maybe you were hurt that I pretended I didn’t know you… I was furious, at the Fair Folk in general, and you specifically. You disappeared without a single word, and now suddenly you’re back, and you expect me to just go on like nothing happened?” Wonshik did not realize that he raised his voice until he literally felt it echo through the room, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. His hand still lay across Hongbin’s chest, just above his heart, and he made a hesitant move to pull it back, but Hongbin caught his wrist.  
“I can’t pretend that nothing happened,” Wonshik whispered, shaking his head.

“And I don’t expect you to. You lost a great deal, Wonshik, and so many Downworlders blame the Fey as a whole. I did not think you would be different. I also was not certain that I would ever be coming back, to this city or to you. I did not say anything, so you would not expect me to make a promise I could not keep.”  
Hongbin sighed then, recognizing that Wonshik did not quite understand, and gently pulled him back next to himself on the messy rug.  
“Do you know,” he continued, his voice quiet and soothing “why so many of the Fey would not say ‘forever’ or ‘never’? Because we are an ancient people, probably the most ancient in this world. And we have seen it all – the birth and death of species, the rise and fall of empires, the changing face of the continents. We have seen oceans dry out until they became deserts and little piles of dust grow into snow-capped mountains. So we know this big and blazing truth about the world, that there is no true forever, nor is anything truly impossible – everything starts somewhere and everything must end. Us too, eventually. So we don’t say forever, or never, because that would be a lie – we say ‘until the stars go out’.  
There is not much that is older than us, but even the oldest songs of Faerie tell about the stars. So if anything could last forever, we believe it would be them. And if not, we still believe that they would be the last to die, and that they would long survive even us…”  
Hongbin’s voice sounded faltering and Wonshik realized with a jolt that it was he who was drifting asleep to the melody of Hongbin’s words. He blinked quickly, trying to make sense of what Hongbin meant by all this, other than that faeries could be ridiculously literal sometimes. But he did notice that although Hongbin claimed 'he had no people' before, he still referred to faeries as 'us', so he asked. There was no way this night was going to get any weirder than this, after all.

“I betrayed the secrets of the Seelie Court, Wonshik, which is a crime punishable by death. I no longer belong to them and any member of the Court would be in their rights to take my life, given the chance.”  
Wonshik froze at this, and he stumbled to sit up and stare at Hongbin in shock. He draw a breath to say something – probably some utter nonsense, he knew himself that much, but Hongbin gave a little shake of his head to silence him. He was not done speaking – confessing, really.  
“I am the one that sent Mark Blackthorn’s message for him. He wrote it but did not know how to send it without raising suspicion – I took it from him and delivered it to the Glass City, to his family. The Queen will know that. She will know that I betrayed Jonathan Morgenstern’s plans and she will say that in doing so, I betrayed her too. Maybe I did – maybe I could not stand watching them together any longer, knowing that his demon touch would corrupt not only my Queen but all she loved, her people. So I decided to cut out those that were already corrupted, like the rotten part of a fruit. Or maybe,” he laughed, more at himself than anything else “…maybe I was just jealous. We can get incredibly jealous, we Fey.”  
“You warned the Shadowhunters! You helped them save themselves!” Wonshik’s eyes went round in surprise and disbelief and he felt his heart rejoice. But Hongbin simply laughed, folding his own arms under his head. Wonshik could see the muscles and tendons pulling taut under his skin that was still slightly wet with Wonshik’s sweat. He was laughing quietly, but there was no joy in that laugh, and his eyes were chilly once again.  
“I have no love lost for the Nephilim, nor do I care what happens to them. They are a young race but already so proud, many in Faerie think they won’t last long anyways.  
No, Wonshik, do not believe that I did this to warn the Shadowhunters. I took the one chance, the one weapon I had against the demon boy, to ensure that his plans would fail, and that he would be gone. That the Nephilim were ultimately the ones that brought him down is perhaps a coincidence, but I believe in Fate. He was still one of them, and most of us become the tools of our own destruction.”

Long silence fell on them afterwards, Hongbin seemingly content with just watching Wonshik, and tracing thin lines of nondescript motifs on his skin and Wonshik not knowing what to say, or rather, how to say what he wanted without spooking Hongbin off.  
“So…” he finally started, and he cursed himself for his inability with words that seemed to come so easily to Hongbin. Even if half the time they made no sense. “So what will you do now, then?”  
“I must find the Queen,” Hongbin said, and Wonshik felt the block of ice sliding back behind his ribs, onto the top of his stomach where it has been slowly freezing his insides for weeks now. He didn’t even realize that it was gone for a short time while he was with Hongbin, until it returned.  
“You just said that she would kill you…” he muttered, trying to hold back the panic from his voice. He thought he understood, to some masochistic extent, that Hongbin would do anything for that witch of a queen, but throwing away his life willingly just like that…  
“Oh no, she will not. She would not taint her hands with my worthless blood… She will have her remaining Knights try, I’m sure. And let them try…” Hongbin smiled then, a wide and confident smile that sent chills down Wonshik’s spine and filled his heart with dread. There was no restraint in that smile, no self-preservation – Hongbin was intent on marching into his death, and pull as many with him as he possibly could. Suddenly the whole night, the whole visit made so much more sense… But while it terrified Wonshik and saddened him down to his bones, he also understood. Wasn’t that what he kept telling his reflection every time after the Praetor Lupus was cut down? Did he not wish that he had been there, that he could have died fighting along with them? Was the determined grief in Hongbin’s dead grass-green eyes not the shadow of his own?  
So he said nothing to convince him that there was always something worth living for. Instead images of Jaehwan and Hakyeon and even Sanghyuk, and so, so many memories of Hongbin flashed in his mind, and he run a calloused fingertip across Hongbin’s smile.  
“Do you think they won’t succed?” he asked, this time straining to keep his hope down.  
“Perhaps they will,” Hongbin nodded, and he turned his head to the side, as he did before, pressing a kiss at Wonshik’s wrist, and then he nuzzling his face into his open palm. “But they have so many things that they fear to lose, which will make them weak, and…”  
I don’t have anything to lose, he meant to continue, but was surprised to feel the words burning up on his tongue. He could think lies, but he could not say them.  
“… and they will think that I don’t. Which will make them terrified. So perhaps… I will stand a chance.”  
“And what will you do? Once you find your Queen?”  
“That… that I do not know. I guess, how does that saying go? We will cross that bridge when we get there.” Hongbin shook his head, still hiding his face in the other boy’s palm. “Is it not amusing, all these empty and nonsense phrases that mundanes use, how somehow it helps them express what they dare not say, if instead they quote some old saying?”  
“You guys speak much weirder than we do… stars going out my ass,” Wonshik murmured, but he let himself be pulled down, and curled against Hongbin again, gazing up at his marble-statue features from his shoulder, and walking his fingertips across the plane of his stomach.

“Go to sleep, Wonshik,” Hongbin chuckled. “It is not hard to tell how tired you are.”  
“Do you know what is more and more hard, tho?” Wonshik grinned as his fingers slowly slid lower and lower on Hongbin’s body, and Hongbin knew mortal speech enough to recognize a rhetorical question when he heard one, so he just met Wonshik’s playful grin with one of his own.  
“I mean, sleep does sound good, but I was thinkig, how about a second round first?” Wonshik continued, positively bold this time. And Hongbin kept laughing and laughing, the clear ringing of his not-quite-otherworldly giggles filling the room with the sound of wind chimes and moonlight and rolled on top of Wonshik in one swift move.  
This time, Wonshik noticed the unforgiving ice block melting away as the Beast inside stirred awake yet again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, first time posting something on AO3 and still trying to figure out how everything works... If you made it this far, well, congratulations first of all!! Also comments and criticism and flailing over either TMI or Rabin in general is welcome and much, much, much appreciated <3333333333333


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